Made it here safe and somewhat sound

So I guess I should have more faith in the weather forecasters. Indeed it did snow. I awoke around 7:00 this morning and there was hardly anything accumulating so I decided to go back to bed for a bit. I got up shortly before 8:00 and checked the highway department's road conditions. It looked as though there were some advisories for New Mexico, but they indicated that road crews were working so I figured I should give them time to work a bit. Josh and I left the house around 9:30 but had errands to run before leaving. By then the wind in our area was wipping up pretty good and snow was blowing everywhere. We left for Albuquerque around 10:30 and it was an arduous trip just to get to I-40. We have to go up a decent hill which wasn't a problem. Then there's an overpass. A stupid driver decides to pull over at the last minute causing the cars behind them (including me) to break and swerve. I ended up going off the road a bit, but didn't hit anything. I backed up and continued on over the overpass. Shortly thereafter, I came upon a 3-car pile up. I traveled about 25 miles an hour at the most just to get down I-27. The visibility at times was zero and there were still cars whipping around me. I hate it when those big honking SUV's think they're above sliding on ice. I exited and headed around the loop which was a little better because the snow was blowing across the road and not straight at us. I had to stop at a convenience store to pick up the beer I wanted to get for my uncle. The roads were still snow packed and icy but I managed to get to I-40 after about 40 minutes. (It usually takes 15-20 minutes) Once we were on I-40 it wasn't too bad. I did see several vehicles off the road but it had started to clear towards the west which is the direction we were headed. There was a bad spot where we had to deal with the icy stuff that hadn't been cleared in a construction zone. As a matter of fact, one of the vehicles that was stuck was a snow plow. Once we got to New Mexico, the roads were clear and so was the sky. We were finally able to pick up the pace.

We arrived at my aunt's around 4:00 Texas time which took us an hour longer than it should have, but better safe that sorry. I didn't count the number of vehicles off the road, but it did include a semi that was upright but had a gash in it's side, an overturned semi, an overturned U-haul, several SUV's and pickups. (Again those people that seem to think a big vehicle makes it safer to drive on ice). I took it as slow as I needed. I settled in for about an hour and a half and then I had to go to Mass. I headed down the mountain road which I did not like. It was winding and there were long patches of ice on the downhill curves. It was scary. And I had more idiots behind me that didn't like the fact that I was going so slow. They finally went around me. I made to church a little late... but again in one piece.

As soon as Mass was over I headed back but decided to forgo the mountain route and went farther down I-40 to the simple up & down road that I took coming into my aunt's house. I had a message on my phone so I checked it. It was Abbagirl worried about me because she had heard about the 80 car pile-up in Amarillo. Luckily it was the opposite end of I-40 that we started out on. It made national news though. Here's the report on CNN. Here's the local news and you can see some footage of the wreck. So now we're back at my aunt's and I'm ready to stay put for a while.